The Shoebox page will keep the record safely until such time when the member decides what to do with it. Rootsweb.com Rootsweb.com has an online guide to help you trace your family roots. It also has a site search engine, databases and a surname list where you could look up possible relatives. A useful page is their Social Security Death Index, that allows you to check for ancestors who have disappeared from public records. Begin the process with your own name, after which, try to work backwards to the name of your parents and then the names of the parents of your parents, and so on. Check with legal documents It would be best to look for your own birth certificate as this basically contain the names of your parents as well as the dates of their births. Tracing Your Family Roots through Genealogy Research Conducting a genealogy research is not so uncommon these days, when there seems to be a resurgence of interest in family history. It reached its peak in the 70s when the novel 'Roots' was published. It was written by Alex Haley, who was able to trace his African roots during the research period for the book. Examples are: - Lists of Passengers on a Ship (as much as 10,000 passenger lists are available to be perused)- examples are Irish passenger lists to Canada and the US, Hamburg Emigration list, Germans from Russia to Canadian and US ports, US Immigration records on Ellis Island, Bremen in Germany to US list, Australian list. Go to your local or state schools, courthouses and churches for records about your family. Civil records like wills, deeds, land or property transfers are kept at courthouses. You can also ask for copies of certificates from the Bureau of Vital Statistics. And don t forget your local library. Get in touch with organizations that conduct genealogical research and historical societies. These classes are free of charge and are given by the staff members and the volunteers of the family history library in order to further help you in using the library s database and other resource info. These classes are valuable, try to plan your whole day around such classes. When researching at the LDS family history library There are actually more than fifty computers available in the family history library.